By Will Smith – Entertainment Editor

“The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom” released on September 26 and was published by Nintendo. The game is a new spin on the Zelda title as it is the first game in the series where users play as Princess Zelda.

Instead of fighting with a sword in the game, players obtain the Tri rod from the spirit Tri which allows them to create echoes. Echoes are recreations of objects and monsters found around Hyrule. As players travel through Hyrule, they will encounter rifts that plague the world. Rifts are a mysterious portal to the still world that will swallow everything that they touch. With some help from the companion Tri, players can mend the rifts to save Hyrule.

With the new Echoes feature it allows for more strategy in the game. Each echo is limited depending on how hard it was to obtain and what it can do. With each rift players close, the more Tri’s power can become available to use. Players can then create either stronger echoes or make more weaker echoes. Using echoes requires strategy and some puzzle solving depending on each situation. Each adventure will be unique in the way players decide to go about doing things with echoes.

Players don’t just get the Tri rod in the game; they can also obtain the sword of might. The sword of might allows the player to go into sword fighter mode and use a sword, shield, arrows, and bombs like in previous games. Sword fighter mode can only be used for limited amounts of time. Players can upgrade sword fighter mode by collecting might crystals around Hyrule. This will allow players to stay in sword fighter form for longer and increase damage dealt in this mode.

One downside to the game is that the world is too small. There are not a whole lot of places to visit in the open world of the game. It feels like it takes a few minutes to get from one end of the map to the other, unlike “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” where there are a lot of different places to visit. While the map does feel small, dungeons certainly make up for it as they take a decent amount of time to complete.

Overall, the game makes a great addition to the “Legend of Zelda” franchise with its new game mechanics and finally being able to play as Zelda. 

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars